This topic has had a lot of attention in the critical care outcomes literature but very little in the psychiatric literature. Few psychiatrists know about the phenomena involving delusional and hallucinatory experiences of patients who survive critical illnesses. Often patients come out of the ICU with horrifying memories (of being tortured, raped, assaulted, or imprisoned) and don’t know what happened to them. Not only are the patients debilitated by the physical illness, they are traumatized by the false memories resulting from delirium.

In Part 1 of this 2-part video, Dr Joe Bienvenu, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, and Dr Dale Needham, Associate Professor of Pulmonary Critical Care Medicine and Physical Medicine Rehabilition, discuss the effects of critical illness and the need for collaborative interventions in the ICU that will improve long-term patient outcomes.